Three months of basic training was easy for me, but for the sake of appearances I had to pretend I was struggling just like everyone else. That meant I had to do stuff like huff and puff after a run that I didn’t break a sweat on, act sore after doing a mere two hundred pushups, and matching speed with the rest of the platoon during workouts, which was more boring than anything. I had a dreadfully dull time for those three months, but at least my nights were more entertaining; that was when I fed. I didn’t get to hunt criminals like I preferred, so I had to make do with the nearby wooded areas a short distance away from the base. Let’s just say there were going to be a lot less rabbits around this season. Gun training was awful, easily worse than any boredom. With my sensitive hearing, the shots were like explosions going off in my ears. I’ve used them in previous was, but I have always preferred blades or my hands. Since I don’t really need to eat, I just gave my food at lunch to the man I always sat next to, William Harken.

“Do you really not want any?” He would always ask. I would always have to explain to him that I wasn’t hungry or that I wasn’t feeling good. In order to not raise suspicion, I would eat every once in a while, but more often than not I would just give to him. He seemed to like the arrangement enough. He was on the larger side, so I’m sure he was just happy he wasn’t going hungry.

After getting out of basic training I was sent to the front lines, the trenches of Switzerland. At first I didn’t do much, until one day the Germans attacked and our whole world turned to fire and blood. There artillery rained on us like a downpour in a tsunami. A red mist of blood appeared with almost every shell that landed; we were taking heavy losses by the second. The cries of our side’s dying echoed in the air like a howling wolf in a cavern. Moans of anguish rang out. Men begging for help, some screaming in pain without uttering any actual words, and some whose screams began to fall silent as they laid in the mud.

I was in a trench with a small group of men who looked as beaten up as was humanly possible. A single man, Private Alfred Winsor, shouted over the bombs, “What do we do sarge?” He was talking to Sargent Christofferson, the man in charge of our platoon.

“We’re going to keep our heads down and return fire as needed until reinforcements arrive!” Sargent Christofferson shouted.

“Sir,” I interjected, “with all due respect, we don’t have that kind of time.”

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“Well, that’s the plan anyway Night‑Walker.” Night‑Walker was nickname I had been given by a few of the men due to my volunteering to take all the night patrols; I used them to hunt whenever there wasn’t an enemy soldier to eat. “Winsor!” The sarge yelled.

“Yes sir?” Alfred responded.

“Go transport medical supplies to the medics to that they can treat the wounded!”

“But it’s raining bullets sir!” He tried to reason.

“Then take an umbrella soldier! Those men need those supplies!” The sarge shouted.

“I’ll do it sir.” I offered.

The sarge turned to me, “good on you! Get to it!” He turned back to private Alfred and said, “now that’s a real man private!” I made my way to the medical supplies and loaded up with six boxes. One by one I delivered the boxes to the medics and ran the messages they gave me to and from the commanders. Occasionally, I would get hit by a stray bullet or blown up by an artillery shell, but I was always fine a few minutes later; thankfully, nobody ever noticed. If someone was close enough to see me get blown up by a shell in those small trenches, then they were dead too.

“Night‑Walker!” A voice yelled over the sounds of explosions. I turned to the direction it was coming from and saw a man named lieutenant Gavern.

“Yes sir?” I shouted over to him.

“What are you crazy? Why are you moving right now, get under cover son!” He yelled from his spot under a dirt covered support beam. He was fully covered behind a steel beam that was supporting a tunnel. I ran over to him, and we hid there until the bombardments stopped an hour later. Once we had conformation it was over, the lieutenant and I walk out of cover and back to our duties. I was assigned to helping the injured by taking them to the medics and after that everyone was to prepare the dead to send home. As I was tending to a man who had lost an arm in a shell strike, Sargent Christofferson came up.

“Night‑Walker, good to see you made it.”

“Thank you sir,” I said.

“Get yourself checked out by the medics okay, it looks like you got hit in the shoulder there.” He said pointing at a small hole in my shoulder with some blood around it. In truth I had been hit, but it had already healed.

“I’m fine sir, this isn’t my blood and that’s not a bullet hole.” I lied.

“Oh, well what is it?” He asked.

“It’s just a rip and some blood from a soldier I was carrying.” I explained.

“Well then, if you’re alright, get back to work.” He instructed.

“Yes sir,” I said. The rest of the day was all about clean up and taking care of anyone we could, it was all we could do.

The next day, we all received new orders, we were to march on a German stronghold and take it. At first a lot of the men thought it was a suicide mission, but that changed when we got word that we would be backed up by the greatest killing machine on the battlefield… tanks. My platoon, as well a few others and the French army, would march on a place near Somme and clean house. Little did we know what we were getting into.